Author's Note: =/
*flails* I need to stop messing with myself on this.
This is a semi-new direction for Whisky on a Sunday. Instead of just one story, it's multiple, interweaving stories. This is kind of a pilot of sorts? Meh. I dunno how long I'll stay with the new direction. I like the idea, but... I dunno. I'm indecisive.
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Chapter 1 (Working Title: Stares)
Eric always found a bizarre sort of symbolism in standing at the bottom of stairs.
A moving up of sorts. He could remember old movie scenes of people coming up to the top of a staircase, their head poking in from the bottom of the screen, moving up to fill the entire window until their feet finally found the landing and the camera panned up to see a look on their face.
Eric never knew how to describe the look.
Infinite, he supposed.
But he didn’t feel infinite, as he started slowly up the stairs, his own head emerging on the bottom of someone’s movie screen. He felt angry, and scared. The only thing keeping him from turning and bolting back down the stairs – twelve of them, he counted each one with a nervous compulsion – was exactly what he’d come to stop doing.
Denial.
I’m only here because Tracy told me to come, he reminded himself over and over again as he followed the curve of the stark white hallway, careful not to meet the stares of anyone he passed. There were all types in the quaint facility – it wasn’t just for alcoholics. Crack addicts, heroin addicts, anorexics, bulimics, prescription drug addicts. Everything under the sun. Most of it didn’t make sense to Eric.
Just one month, and then Tracy will leave me alone, and I can go back to life the way it was.
The doctor or nurse or secretary or whatever she was stopped and turned to face Eric. He didn’t want to look at her. She was a cold woman with a conservative dark blue suit and horn-rimmed classes.
A walking cliché, Eric thought.
“This will be your room while you’re here, Mr. MacAllister,” she said in a curt voice, pointing to an open door to her right. Eric took a step forward and glanced around the threshold. There were three beds, one of which was occupied, one of which was unmade. The third was freshly done up with stiff white sheets and a fluffy-looking pillow. A lonely nightstand stood by it like a sentry. The tiny curtains on the tiny window were pulled back to reveal the upper branches of a tree and a slice of blue sky.
The occupied bed boasted a sleeping form, a man of about forty if Eric had to guess, curled on his side in a fetal position. Eric watched his torso expand and contract with each breath.
The walking cliché next to him was still talking, but Eric didn’t hear a thing. His attention was focused on the sleeping form. Somehow, this man he had never met but would be sharing a room with jarred Eric’s senses.
Just one month… I’m only here because Tracy forced me into it.
But was he really?
The walking cliché had stopped talking and was staring at him with a raised eyebrow. He felt a million miles away, which of course is impossible because the Earth is only about 25,000 miles in circumference.
“Well, your roommates will coach you on the rest,” she said after an awkward pause. “I suggest you get to know them, and get to know them well. Your first group meeting is tomorrow morning.”
She walked away, leaving Eric staring dumbly into the stark white room he was to call home for twenty-eight days. He took a tentative step over the threshold, listening to the echo of his trainer colliding with the ground. A curt snap. Another sound he’d always felt had some sort of deeper meaning – a sense of purpose, maybe.
There was no purpose as he teetered over to the vacant bed and placed his knapsack on top of it. He shuffled a bit, looking around. There was no colour, no life to the walls. No sign that the room was meant for human occupation at all.
How anyone doesn’t go bonkers in here is beyond me, he thought.
The sleeping man gave a grunt and rolled over, his eyes blinking open.
“Who’re you?” he said.
“Your new roommate,” Eric said.
“Wha’s your name?”
“Eric MacAllister.”
The man stuck out a hand. “Owen Conway. Pleased to meet you.”
Eric shifted uncomfortably, sitting down on the edge of his bed. He drummed his fingers on the sides, looking around the room. Owen stared at him.
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“What’re you in for?”
Eric was reminded strongly of every movie or television show he’d ever seen that incorporated prison. The age-old question of one prisoner to another.
Fabulous, Eric thought.
“My brother dragged me here, because a friend pestered him into it. I don’t even know why I’m here; they’re the fucked-up ones. Putting me through this when I don’t even need it. Hey, at least they’re paying for it, right?”
Owen chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
“You are just like every other idiot on their first day. Blaming other people, avoiding the question, la de freakin’ dah. I did it too; it’s okay.
“But you didn’t answer my question. Why are you here?”
“I just told you,” Eric said, disbelieving that someone could be so thick.
“No, you really didn’t.”
“Was I speaking French for a minute there?”
“Non, monsieur.”
“Very funny.”
“Suit yourself,” Owen said, lying back on his bed. “But just know that’s not the last time someone’s gonna heckle you like that. You’re gonna have to learn to accept this, lad. Camp’s over. This is the big time now.”
Owen yawned.
“Why don’t you go explore a bit? There’s only a few individual sessions going on right now. Just stay away from closed doors and you’ll be fine. You should try to find Bart, he’s our other roommate. Go on, introduce yourself. Me, I’m getting back to my nap.”
The older man rolled over and curled up on his side. A few moments later, he started to snore.
I have to live with that for a month? Eric thought as he stood up. He was kind of glad to duck out of the room and escape from Owen.
He didn’t like the feeling he got in the pit of his gut when Owen asked him that question.
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